Parents OCD elbow return to gymnastics success?

[flyinghigh]

I'm looking for success stories of returning to gymnastics after OCD in the elbow especially without surgery. There isn't a lot on the Internet about it.

My daughter is a L7 and she just turned 11. She was diagnosed with OCD in March, we are now on month 4 of no activity on that arm. She still does everything else and is coping quite well with one arm in the gym. We traveled to a top notch elbow surgeon who agrees (after another high end MRI) that she is stage one and does not require surgery. No loose bodies and cartlidge is intact. Actually, her lesion had healed 55% in 3 months according to her last MRI. Initially her lesion was quite large 1.3 cm by 1.4 cm and is now 9 mm by 9 mm. Her Dr is confident she can return in 3 more months (6 months total). I keep reading unsuccessful stories of this happening.

She now has no pain and even did a few cartwheels at home yesterday with no pain (wanted to test her arm) so she's really hoping for release or partial release when we see the surgeon again in August. (Month 5)

If she is released, what can we expect? Anyone experienced this especially when no surgery is involved?

 

[thefellowsmom]

Not sure if you have seen this or not, but here is a nice article that USAG put out a few years ago.

https://usagym.org/docs/Education/library/2012_may_6.pdf

Glad to hear that she is healing!

 

[flyinghigh]

Yes, I have read that and thank you. It talks more about surgical repair and states non operative usually has poor results which is discouraging. Our Dr states otherwise. I hope he's right.

 

[calli]

My daughter has been dealing with OCD for about a year now. It was originally identified as Panner's Disease in both elbows. She rested for 3 months and then returned slowly back to training , by 13 weeks one elbow locked (OCD) and required surgery. She rested both elbows during the recuperation time after surgery which was 3 months, she is now almost 3 months cleared and is having problems with the elbow that didn't have surgery. I can only go from my experience which is that conservative treatment of 3 months did not work. Closer to 6 months may if your doctor has successfully brought gymnasts back this way. Is she doing PT? Possibly see if she could get cleared for some partial weight bearing conditioning such as planks around month 4 0r 5. I think every case of OCD is different, I will be watching this thread hoping for some success stories with conservative treatment. Also, check with your doctor and see if she can start hanging on the bar around now it might help her if she can start adding back something like that.

 

[flyinghigh]

My daughter has been dealing with OCD for about a year now. It was originally identified as Panner's Disease in both elbows. She rested for 3 months and then returned slowly back to training , by 13 weeks one elbow locked (OCD) and required surgery. She rested both elbows during the recuperation time after surgery which was 3 months, she is now almost 3 months cleared and is having problems with the elbow that didn't have surgery. I can only go from my experience which is that conservative treatment of 3 months did not work. Closer to 6 months may if your doctor has successfully brought gymnasts back this way. Is she doing PT? Possibly see if she could get cleared for some partial weight bearing conditioning such as planks around month 4 0r 5. I think every case of OCD is different, I will be watching this thread hoping for some success stories with conservative treatment. Also, check with your doctor and see if she can start hanging on the bar around now it might help her if she can start adding back something like that.

I hate to hear that for your dd. Question- when the Dr originally released her at 3 months did he/she require MRI clearance? Just curious. Both our doctors require that and we're pleased on her last MRI which showed 55% improvement. They said must be totally healed before full cleanance. Her growth plates are wide open so that's good for blood flow. She is not doing PT. she has full range of motion in her arm and now no pain but of course she hasn't been using it in gym. I'm so skeptical that rest will heal it, that's why we traveled to this surgeon but he insists it will in 6 months total and said no surgeon would operate on this elbow because it's healing so that's good. I didn't ask him how many successful cases of gymnasts he's seen return after conservative treatment but I will next appt which is in 5 weeks.

Thanks for your reply and good luck to your daughter.

 

[sce]

I hate to hear that for your dd. Question- when the Dr originally released her at 3 months did he/she require MRI clearance? Just curious. Both our doctors require that and we're pleased on her last MRI which showed 55% improvement. They said must be totally healed before full cleanance. Her growth plates are wide open so that's good for blood flow. She is not doing PT. she has full range of motion in her arm and now no pain but of course she hasn't been using it in gym. I'm so skeptical that rest will heal it, that's why we traveled to this surgeon but he insists it will in 6 months total and said no surgeon would operate on this elbow because it's healing so that's good. I didn't ask him how many successful cases of gymnasts he's seen return after conservative treatment but I will next appt which is in 5 weeks.

Thanks for your reply and good luck to your daughter.

I don't have a lot of experience with this, but as I understand only some cases heal on their own, It has to do with blood flow or lack thereof and if pieces have broken off. So, my understanding is that with your dds being minor and showing healing there is a good chance it will heal with the continued rest and no need for surgery. More sever cases either lack the blood flow and or have loose pieces that hinder the healing.

 

[profmom]

We have a guy currently waiting out the recovery period (no surgery). He tried to start back after four months but experienced pain, and the coach immediately pulled him back off all event work. As he's been going through this, the coach has told us about a previous athlete of his who had severe OCD, tried to come back too soon, and ended up needing surgery. After the surgery, however, he worked his way back and eventually went on to college gym and I believe an NCAA championship on still rings.

The coach says that the key to getting through OCD is caution and conservatism. He is optimistic that our current guy will be back for next year's season in good health without going under the knife, but he has threatened the kid within an inch of his life to report all pain immediately.

 

[Stellar]

My DD was 14 was she was diagnosed with OCD in January 2014. She was a second year L8 training 9. She tried the rest route. She had an MRI in March 2014 and then a follow up 8 weeks later in May and the second MRI showed no improvement and in fact the lesion may have even grown. She had surgery end of May 2014. They drilled holes to increase blood supply. There were no loose fragments or broken bones.

She took some time off after surgery, then slowly started conditioning and started back to gym slowly about 5 months post surgery. Even then she was very selective about her skills. She was doing HS gymnastics and then repeating L8 so she had time to recover without up-training. No BHS or FHS in tumbling (did RO layout or RO full and FT FP). She changed vault from yurchenko to Tsuk, for most of the first year back she did CW RO on beam ( added back BHS BHS for states and regionals). Even took out the pirouette in bars and replaced it with an uphill.

She does hyper-extend elbows and I believe that was one of the reasons she developed OCD.

2 years post surgery she competed L9 and HS gymnastics. She has a had a couple times her elbow bothered her since surgery. One time she went to PT and they worked on not hyper-extending elbow and strengthening. The most recent elbow issue was "jammed elbow" from a bad vault. I was worried it was related to OCD, but it healed and she's had no issue's since.

Good Luck to your DD.

 

[B&M's mom]

My DD's situation is a bit different than yours. She may have an OCD lesion in her elbow in a strange place. Because of its placement, they are simply monitoring it and she has changed her routines to accommodate the pain. She's had two other OCD lesions in her knees that did not respond to conservative treatment. I do know that her sports medicine doctor thought that if they healed on their own, she'd have no future issues with the lesions and gymnastics.

It sounds like your daughter's lesion is responding and she should be back to practice in a few months. Don't rush it! You want to avoid surgery if at all possible. I know that the 6 month rest period is killer especially since she probably has little or no pain when she's not using it but going through even the simplest surgery is worse! Remember the lesion is healing and doing the activities that caused the lesion to form will potentially prevent the healing. So if she's not allowed to use the elbow, don't let her! You don't want to stress the healing bone! That was probably the biggest mistake my daughter has made. When things felt better she would ramp up her activities and find out later that things didn't heal properly.

 

[tomtnt]

one of our graduating senior had OCD of her elbow requiring surgery. She was a highly successful young level 10 (beat Simone Biles at Nationals Jr. A!) -- took a year off for the surgery and recovery. Worked her butt off to make a full comeback and will be competing for an elite Div. 1 program next year.